Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1887-03-12
Have We "A Board of Public Works?

To The Editor u the Register.
SIR-If You doubt the pertinency of the
above question, hire a buggy and take a
drive about the city. lou can form nc
correct idea Of the condition Ofthe streets
by walking on the sidewalks. Since the
present city government anne into power
there has he no visible sign of the exist
cnce of a set of officials whose duty il is TO
keep the streets in order. The cobble stone
pavements have never, within the past
eight years, beenin such IN ahominable con,
dition. Not only so. but the excellent and
expensive brick pavements are being tam
pered with and left in an unsafe condition
which will result in damage To carriages
and also TO the pavements themselves. Let
this stand as a general charge of inefficiency
and neglect of duty.
Now for n very few items: Market street
from Fifteenth street TO the creek bridge
has been almost impossible all winter ow-
ing TO the digging of a trench for the nat
uIal gas pipes at q time when it ought
not To have been allowed and
when the freezing weather made
it impossible to fill the trench properly.
The frost has all been out Of the ground
for some time, yet nothing has been done.
The fault can never be corrected properly
without digging the earth all II Of the
treDch and relilling it, ramming thorough
ly as il is refilled. As this requires only
an order To the Natural Gas Company from
the Board of Public Works, and involves
no expense to the city, il is impossible Ia
imagine why it ia not done.
Ii Is difficult la drive over Main street
from Tenth la Sixteenth streets without
breaking a spring or an axle, because the
trenches dug by the natural gas companies
were never properly filled, and are now, in
some places, bitches six or eight inches
deep. The fault was at first with the last
Board in not insisting OH a proper perform
auce of the work. But the present Board
is %censurable Tor not obliging the natural
gas companies TO put the street in A. good
order as they found it.
One of the gas companies made several
trenches across Virginia street, tearing up
the brick pavement TO do so. Those
trenches have been left all winter without
replacing the bricks, although at the time
they were made there would have been
10 difficulty in relaying the bricks
in their true and level position;
for the earth could have been rarnmed 80
compactly that the bricks could have been
level with the street without danger OF
settling. Any mar who has ever tried il
will tell you that by energetic ramming
You a put more earth into a hole than
You took out of it. Here again the last
Board was in fault: hut the present Board
is not doing its duty. The edges Of the
bricks on the sides of the trenches are be
ing worn, and some Of the bricks which
were taken out are being thrown about
and lost in the mud of the cross streets.
Within a week or ten days two more
trenches have been dug across the whole
width of Virginia street to supply q new
building with water and gas, contrary 10
the ordinance which required all such work
to be done before the pavement was laid.
These trenches are also left unpayed.
whereas they ought TO have been paved as
soon as they were filled and the Board of
Public Works ought to have insisted on lis
being done.
In the middle of Huron street, near
what / believe is called Delaware street,
there is n place where the bricks have
sunk, from some eause Of WHICH | am
ignorant until they are three or four
inches below the proper grade. They
ought to be taken up aud relaid after the
hole has been properly filed. Why let it
90 on and become worse? II Is easier to
remedy a small fault than a large one.
At the end Of the brick pavement on
Huron street, where il abuts On Zane
street, is ditch which / think must be II
present a foot dep and II or 10 inches
across, and there it hss beeE foL months,
gradually groWias deeper. IL could be
properly Hliei and paved in q few hours;
but it Is LEFT, TO the damage Of every light
vehicle that has to cross it, and to the al
most certain wreck of any carriage that
crosses il on a trot.
On Chapline street, where the work OF
was discontinued last Gll at
street, the last bricks were
left without any support or protection aud
there is 4 sudden break af one foot or IL
inches down into the mud Of Eghtssaih
street Some Of the bricks have been
looSened and mired With the mad IL a